This time next year, President Trump moves back into the Whitehouse...

[ZRX61]

Apparently the underlying crime is falsification of business records* to influence an election... but it happened AFTER he'd already won the election.

*& the falsification was committed by Cohen, not Trump.

Edit: nope, it isn't that

[Horse]

Do you not get charged with crimes in the land of the free? Listen to the charge, it will tell you what the crime is.

According to the BBC:

The former president is accused of falsifying his business records by saying the payment was for legal fees. He's facing 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them.

[Pirahna]

Judge's daughter is making bank working for the Biden campaign...

Don't believe everything you read on Truth Social

[ZRX61]

According to the BBC:

The former president is accused of falsifying his business records by saying the payment was for legal fees. He's facing 34 counts of fraud under campaign finance laws, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them.

The judge didn't allow the head of the dept that oversees campaign finance to testify... He was already on record as saying there wasn't a crime. The Feds also declined to prosecute.. & no one is sure why a City DA is prosecuting a Federal crime (that didn't happen according to the Feds). The DA was elected on a platform of stating he would go after Trump if elected.

[ZRX61]

Don't believe everything you read on Truth Social

Never looked at it.

[Horse]

The judge didn't allow the head of the dept that oversees campaign finance to testify...

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-b ... 7236056289

CLAIM: New York Judge Juan M. Merchan wouldn’t let the defense call campaign finance expert Bradley A. Smith to testify in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Merchan did not bar Smith from testifying. Trump’s legal team chose to not call on him after the judge on Monday declined to broaden the scope of questioning the defense could pursue. The ruling echoed his pretrial ruling on the matter.

THE FACTS: As the trial continued Tuesday, social media users misrepresented Merchan’s ruling, repeating a statement Trump made that Smith, a law professor and former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, was not being allowed to take the stand.

“The expert witness that we have, the best there is in election law, Brad Smith, he’s considered the Rolls Royce, or we’ll bring it back to an American car, Cadillac, but the best there is,” Trump said on his way out of court on Monday. “He can’t testify. He’s not being allowed to testify.”


https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2 ... t-00158857


Justice Juan Merchan has sharply limited what Trump's planned expert witness can testify about.

Trump's defense team wants to call election law expert Brad Smith to testify about federal campaign finance law. But the judge ruled this morning that allowing Smith to testify expansively on that topic would supplant the judge's role to determine what the law is.

“There is no question this would result in a battle of the experts, which will only serve to confuse, and not assist, the jury,” Merchan declared near the beginning of today's court session.

Merchan did not block Trump from calling Smith, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. But the judge said he’d be restricted to the basics of the FEC and to “general definitions and terms” in campaign finance law, like what counts as a contribution or expenditure.

Trump’s defense wants Smith to testify about the FEC’s policy that expenses that exist “irrespective” of a candidacy are not deemed to be campaign expenditures — evidently as part of an argument that the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels wasn’t campaign-related under federal law.

[ZRX61]

Merchan did not block Trump from calling Smith, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. But the judge said he’d be restricted to the basics of the FEC and to “general definitions and terms” in campaign finance law, like what counts as a contribution or expenditure.

The Judges ruling prevented him from testifying that what Trump did wasn't a crime under FEC rules/laws, gee, I wonder why?

& thanks for pointing out that I was right: He wasn't allow to testify.

[Mussels]

Banning questions about the law from a courtroom sounds rather odd, I thought it was meant to be a battle of experts?
Makes me think it's on very dodgy ground.

[Cousin Jack]

The US judicial system is as big a fcuk up as the US political system. They deserve each other.

[ZRX61]

Verdict is in, looking forward to exploding heads whichever way it goes.

[KungFooBob]

GUILTY!

[ZRX61]

LMFAO!!

[Slenver]

Couldn't happen to a nicer scumbag.

[ZRX61]

Unlikely the appeal will be heard before the election.

[Nordboy]

Nice to see that the US Justice system can see right through the bullshit. That is unanimous, completely. And for the jury to reach that decision on 34 counts, in a couple of days shows exactly how damning the prosecution’s evidence was and how bad the defence was, they had nothing, tried attacking people rather than the evidence because they couldn't, it was too strong.

I'm not even sure what grounds he'd appeal on? they're saying that SD's evidence was too explicit? I think it was Cohen and Pekers testimony that really sealed it. Well, that and the fact that Trump is basically a lying, cheating, fraudster

[Noggin]

Does that stop him standing in the elections?

[Hot_Air]

He can stand for President regardless of the conviction (even if, albeit unlikely, he’s in jail).

[Mussels]

I can't find it now but the BBC did a breakdown of a few reasons he can appeal, this case used the court system in a few novel ways and may not have been legal to start with.

[Mussels]

Here it is.

As a reminder, Donald Trump's team say they are planning to appeal against the verdicts. But on what basis?

The evidence of Stormy Daniels, whose alleged sexual encounter with Trump was at the heart of the case, could be one reason.

“The level of detail that was provided [by Daniels] is really not necessary to the telling of the story," says Anna Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School.

The novel legal strategy taken by the district attorney in this case may also provide grounds for appeal.

Falsifying business records can be a lower-level misdemeanour in New York, but Trump faced more serious felony charges because of a supposed second crime - an illegal attempt to influence the 2016 election.

Prosecutors broadly alleged that violations of federal and state election laws, along with tax fraud, applied to this case. But they did not specify to the jury exactly which one was broken.

Legal experts say there are questions around the scope and application of the federal law, which could form a basis for appeal. Never before has a state prosecutor invoked an uncharged federal crime, and there’s a question if the Manhattan District Attorney had the jurisdiction to do so.

[Cousin Jack]

I can't find it now but the BBC did a breakdown of a few reasons he can appeal, this case used the court system in a few novel ways and may not have been legal to start with.

No idea of the 'legality', but the court delivered justice. A lying scumbag got convicted.